


One Summer's Day at Pretty Maids

by Bookwormsarah



Category: Chalet School - Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormsarah/pseuds/Bookwormsarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My attempt at explaining how Rolf Maynard met his demise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Summer's Day at Pretty Maids

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on the CBB about a decade ago...

"Mummy, MUMMY!" Lydia groaned and leant back in her chair. It was the school holidays and eleven year old Rolf, back at Pretty Maids for nearly two weeks now, was rapidly becoming bored with everything. An only and much longed for child he had been sickly as a baby and still had a sallow complexion and a fractious element to his personality that could have been a result of this or equally could have been inherited from his mother.

"On the terrace, darling" She pulled the bell to summon the maid from the kitchen as she heard him running across the grass, and when he collapsed on the chair beside her Rachel was pouring out a fruit drink from a jug and handing him a glass. His hot face, tinged with sunburn, creased into an expression of disgust, as he tasted it and spat it back into the glass

"Ugggh, not sweet enough. Mummy, you know I like lots of sugar, tell her I want more sugar." His mother’s face took on an expression closely related to his own.

"Rolfie you are naughty. Rachel has made this lemonade just for you. Be a good boy and drink it up now." He shook his head and pulled a face.   
"It makes my mouth wrinkle." She took the glass from him, tasted it and sighed

"It is a little tart. Never mind, darling, this afternoon Emily can take you to the shops with her and you can buy lots of lovely sweets" She picked up her book once more, only to put it down when her son began to kick the wickerwork chair.

"I'm booored." Lydia looked helplessly at Rachel who made a rapid exit with the dirty glasses

"Don't do that, darling, it marks the paint. Can't you play with Toby and Richard? Or why don't you take the dogs for a run. Or there's your tree house, or…" he gave the chair one final kick

"Richard and Toby are stupid. I always have to be the baddie and they wont let me tell them my games. The dogs run too fast and tree houses are for babies. I want to go to the seaside. Or I want to go out on my bicycle to the river."

Lydia stood up "You are being a very silly little boy. You know that we aren't going to the seaside until the third week in August, and the river is far too far away for a little boy like you to go on his own. Anyway your bike is broken, Dickson still hasn't mended the front wheel and you'll leave it alone until he has."

It was Rolf's turn to flush. In the first week of his holiday he had decided to impress Toby and Richard by showing off his shiny bicycle, a Christmas present the previous year. He had bumped up a kerb and fallen off much to the amusement of the others and concern of their mother who had been gardening at the time and witnessed the whole thing. The only casualty had been the front wheel, now straightened by the gardener/odd job man but still in the clamp awaiting reattachment. With an unusual strength of voice Lydia spoke up

"I'll talk to Dickson this afternoon when he's finished mending the greenhouse roof" - another accident of master Rolf's - "and you can go for a bicycle ride tomorrow and take a picnic. Today you can go down and pick up the croquet set from where you left it yesterday. Then why don't you see how many tennis balls you can find in the shrubbery? We must have lost a dozen so far this year. I'll give you sixpence for everyone you find." This clinched it and, with his fists pushed into his pocket, he stomped off. She watched him gather the mallets and balls in their little rack and wheel it off in the direction of the garden buildings and with a nod of satisfaction picked up her book.

Rolf threw the croquet set into the corner of the shed and was just about to head off for more moneymaking pursuits when he caught sight of the little door in the far corner. He had forgotten that there was a door between the games shed and the garage and with Dickson engaged elsewhere it seemed a perfect opportunity to explore. He dragged open the door and stepped through into an Aladdin's cave.

There were the rows of paints and enamels used for running repairs about the house, there were the neatly labelled row of jars containing screws and nails and there, oh there, was the car. Rolf loved the big beautiful machine that he rarely got to ride in. It picked him up from the railway station only very occasionally; most of the time he was driven home by the vicar when he picked up his nephew Anthony who was three years younger and a pupil at the same prep school. He was never, NEVER let near it otherwise.

Carefully he stepped towards it and slid into the driver’s seat. He didn't touch the horn, knowing it would bring trouble in the form of an enraged Dickson, instead amused himself by pulling all the levers he could find, and pretending to turn the mighty wheel. For almost ten minutes he was fully absorbed. Then he looked up and saw the bike wheel on the bench at the end. He slid down from the car and walked down the gentle slope towards it.

The frame of the bicycle was propped in the corner and he tugged at it. He reckoned he could attach that wheel and that would teach those Thompson boys to laugh at him and call him clumsy. He would attach it and bicycle over. They would have to let him play if he showed them what he had done. He pulled hard on the heavy arm to loosen the clamp. It squeaked, not loudly enough to attract attention but enough to mask other noises.

He was so absorbed that it was too late when he heard the crunch of the car rolling over a paint roller he had flung out of his way and turned round with a high pitched shriek.

Lydia on the terrace dropped her book at the cry, cut off so abruptly with a dull thud. She gathered herself and ran across the lawn, staining her light slippers with grass, soon almost overtaken by Rachel who had had further to run but was wearing sturdier shoes. Dickson got there first though. He had nearly sent the ladder through the glass in his haste, and pulled at the heavy doors, opened them and turned to say in a hoarse voice to the other two "Best not go in, best send for Doctor Edmonds." before edging his way past the car to the end.

There was no hope. The machine was a heavy one and though the slope was slight, the momentum had been sufficient to crush the life out of the little boy. The brake must have become dislodged when he was playing and he had been trapped, pinned between the workbench and the car. Lydia had run hysterically for the telephone and it was Rachel who came forward with trembling hands to help lift the child free while Dickson pushed the car.

They carried him back to the house and laid him on the reclining chair on which his mother had been reading peacefully less than half an hour earlier. The doctor shook his head at the sight and Lydia collapsed and had to be put to bed with a sedative. A telegram was sent to Rolf's father who hurried home, grey faced and shaking, and later that evening to other family members.

When her husband appeared in her bedroom doorway Lydia looked up. Her petulant expression had been replaced with one of pure limp misery and he gathered her into his arms.   
"I should have taken him out. He said he was bored; I should have taken him for a drive, or into town. I should have watched him. I should have told Dickson to mend the bike sooner rather than making him wait as a punishment, I shouldn't have sent him into the shed, I…"

Robert held her tight "No 'what ifs' Lydia, you mustn't think like that. There was nothing you could have done, nothing anyone could have done." She sobbed quietly, and he kept holding her. Nothing, she had nothing! She and Robert had never been particularly close, not soul mates like Rowena and Paul. Lydia was a society wife and things had seemed very empty since moving to the country. When Rolf was home for the holidays he brought with him noise and untidiness and tempers but he also brought a spark back into both of them. They felt like a real family. She felt a strong pulse of envy and hatred towards Rowena with her two boys, towards all of those people with families. She pulled back from her husband, her voice growing a little cold

"I am tired, Robert. I'll take a pill and then let me sleep." He nodded and left her room, shoulders bowed. For an instant they had been close again and now she had pulled away, further than before. He had lost his son and maybe his wife. Robert Maynard was a crushed man.


End file.
